Deception & Rebellion – Six Verses that Changed the World | Genesis 3:1-6

INTRODUCTION

Deception and Rebellion is not something new to this age, it is something we all have been familiar with and experienced. We talk about the events that changed the world. Here are some things that changed the world

• The invention of the fire and the wheel.
• The industrial revolution.
• The World Wars I & II
• The invention of computer & internet.
• The 9/11 attacks.
• Now the AI and it implications on our life.

But do you know that there is even a greater thing that changed our world?

Six verses that changed the world

Genesis 3:1-6

¹Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” ²The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

⁴“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” ⁶When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

If the events of Genesis 3 did not exist, we would not have a bible. There would be no need for the remainder of the Bible. Genesis 3 documents for us the sad consequences of Adam’s sins, but it prefaces God’s unfolding plan through the rest of the Bible; God’s plan of grace, forgiveness, and covering of sin.

Genesis 3 and 4 is a good thesis statement for the rest of the Bible. If you think of the entire Bible as the essay of God’s unfolding plan, these 2 two chapters give us the thesis statement. They tell us: Why it is needed and what God will do.

Last week we saw that:

• God is the creator God.
• God is a relational God. God had a relationship, communion with Adam and Eve. He walked with them in the cool of the day.
• God gave them the responsibility to reproduce and cultivate the garden. He gave Adam the responsibility of working and keeping the garden and what he had created.
• God gave them great liberty. He said, “You may surely eat of any fruit of the trees in the garden but just one limitation, “you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” 2:17

There was one keep off sign that was posted in the garden and that crafty serpent brought that one limitation to the attention of Eve. He did not come through the front door by mentioning it but rather he baited Eve into contemplating it and mentioning it herself. That is where the craftiness lies. This is the art of Deception and the start of rebellion.

King of Deception – Who is the serpent?

The serpent had been created by God. Serpent is not an independent equal rival to God, rather he is subject to the sovereignty of God and will of God. When you take the serpent’s behaviour and character, there is enough evidence to corresponds that the serpent is representative of Satan.

The Apostle Paul interpreted serpent as Satan as did all Jews and Christians.

Romans 16:20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

The presence of Satan in the garden is a symbolic use of the serpent, because Satan is the enemy of humanity. This is a language or image of a historical reality, that is the presence of an evil being.

In Genesis 2 & 3we have

Temptation

Genesis 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

1 John 2:16

For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.

• Lust of the flesh – Good for food.
• Lust of the eyes – Pleasing to the eye.
• Pride of life – Desirable for gaining wisdom

Deception – Serpent’s Promise To Eve

Genesis 3:4

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

• You will not certainly die.
• Your eyes will be opened.
• You will be like God. He assured her that she could be like her creator.
• Knowledge of good and evil. A whole new world of knowledge and experience would be opened. The deception of promising knowing good and evil that she would look forward for deciding for herself now what was right and wrong, what was good and evil.

Did the promise of the serpent fulfil?

Did Satan speak the truth?

Genesis 3:7 

Then the eyes of both of them were opened

Genesis 3:22 

And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.

How did Adam and Eve become more like God by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil?

Rebellion – More like God?

Objective Knowledge – Knowledge of good outside yourself.

Subjective Knowledge – Knowledge of good inside yourself.

Did The Serpent Speak The Truth?

Genesis 3:1-6, 22

Eyes will be opened, did they eyes open? Yes. Is Satan telling the truth? They become like one of us God said.

Does Satan tell the truth?

Is Satan always a liar? Will Satan speak the truth? Is the word of God the truth? Yes. Did Satan use the word of God? Yes.

The serpent speaks the truth but lies at the same time. We see the deception of Satan here.

ILLUSTRATION

When you want to catch a rat, you will put poison on a piece of bread. Is the bread good? Yes 99% of the bread is good, but 1% of the bread is the poison. The rat eats it and what gets it? The 1% of poison kills the rat. The other 99% is that good healthy bread.

A person tells the truth, tells the truth, tells the truth but with a small lie the entire truth is twisted. Satan tells the truth, the truth, the truth but there is this 1% poison. So are the false prophets and false teachers, they tell the truth, the truth, the truth and then comes the 1% poison that will destroy people. This is the pattern of deception.

Is the Satan an angel of light?

2 Corinthians 11:14

And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angle of light.

Does he deceive people by telling them the truth? Yes. But in the truth is embedded the lie. If not, there is no deception. So, Satan is crafty, subtle, shrewd, and tricky. He is very evil, because he guards himself in things like the truth. Satan guards himself in things like goodness, righteousness and all those things but in the inside there is the poison that kills.

Eve Deceived And Adam Rebelled

It was Eve who was deceived, but Adam he took the fruit in rebellion.

2 Corinthians 11:3

Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning,…

1 Timothy 2:14  

And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.

Adam rebelled.

Because of that all mankind, all of their offspring carried that DNA of that transgression.

Romans 5:12 

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned

Romans 5:14 

Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

Genesis 3:7 

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Genesis 2:25 

Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Knowledge

Now they have gained knowledge and know they knew that they were naked and they felt vulnerable because of that, and they felt shame. Immediately they were self-aware and they were self-focused in a way they did not expect to feel.

So the first thing they do is an attempt to cover themselves, to make their own covering.

Now, Jews and Christians believe that nakedness expresses the waywardness of humanity. Nakedness, in its essence, is not sinful because God created man and women naked. It turns sinful when clothing, mandated to cover nakedness, exceeds the bounds set by God for men and women who have sinned against Him.

God pronounced the consequence of the fall. Adam and Eve were still naked. But after that in Genesis 3:21 God makes a covering for them. God is portrayed as the first fashion designer.

Genesis 3:21 

The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

Consequence Of Sin: Coming Week, very interesting on Husband, wife, sibling rivalry, work.

Consequence of Sin

On the Serpent, on Adam, & on Eve. We will look at it in detail the next week. Kindly read Genesis 3 and 4:1-17 and come next week.

However, I want to point to one oracle of Judgement given to the serpent and close today.

Genesis 3:15 

And I will put enmity

between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and hers;

he will crush your head,

and you will strike his heel.”

God started a plan right there and his plan has been unfolding in his time ever since then.

2 seeds: Protoevangelium; Genesis 3:15

Protoevangelium (proto – first, evangelion – gospel)

Right from the first curse, there is hope that Satan is not going to triumph, that death will not triumph, that the woman’s seed will crush the head of the serpent.

We learn that our redemption will not come through an angel or something like that. Our redemption will come through the offspring of the woman.

So we have the whole Bible now to give us a roadmap of God redeeming from this moment. It says that the serpent will only be able to strike his heal, while the saviour will come and crush his head. So we have the gospel right here.

The honour and glory given by God had been lost.

Glory and hour of man in the creation:

Psalm 8

⁵You have made them a little lower than the angels

(there is a terrestrial sphere and then the angels are celestial)

and crowned (royal figures, ruling figures) them with glory and honor.

⁶You made them rulers over the works of your hands;

you put everything under their feet:

⁷all flocks and herds,

and the animals of the wild,

⁸the birds in the sky,

and the fish in the sea,

all that swim the paths of the seas.

⁹Lord, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

What has been lost is not the image but rather the high standard and the elevated position that God originally intended for men and women when they were created, with the assignment of procreation and dominion.

It is God who acts through Jesus Christ on behalf of what man lost with regard to the rebellion.

Hebrew 2:5-9

⁵It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. ⁶But there is a place where someone has testified:

“What is mankind that you are mindful of them,

a son of man that you care for him?

⁷You made them a little lower than the angels;

you crowned them with glory and honor

⁸and put everything under their feet.”

In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them. ⁹But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

Jesus’ prayer in John 17 to the Father

John 17:20-23

²⁰“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— ²³I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity.

Through Jesus we have got back the glory and honour that we lost in the garden of Eden. So the Gospel is the gospel is the liberation from sin, deception and enslavement through the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross.

Those who are in Christ will be made and declared righteous on the basis of the complete total obedience of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Father. No to deception and No to Rebellion.

Romans 5:12-21

¹²Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned— ¹³To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. ¹⁴Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

¹⁵But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! ¹⁶Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. ¹⁷For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!

Result

¹⁸Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. ¹⁹For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

²⁰The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, ²¹so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The full experience of this will occur at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. Meanwhile, we are currently in the process of being glorified. Jesus extends the offer of the kingdom, inviting mankind to partake in the glory and honor He secured for us on the cross through His atonement. Amen